Children’s understanding of life and death

For 4- to 5-years old

This study will take place on a video call, live with a researcher! Clicking on the “Schedule a time to participate” button will send you to an online calendar where you can select a date and time that works for you.
In this study, we are interested in how children think about life and death, and how they talk about death with their parents. The parent will complete a survey about their children before the interview. Children will answer questions on what they know about living (e.g., plants, dogs, people) and non-living (e.g., cars, toys) things can or cannot do. After the interview, children will watch two short animated films with a parent and have the chance to discuss the events in the movie. The movies are appropriate for children but one of them does include the death of a character (but the death is not show on screen).

In this study, we are interested in how children think about life and death. We ask them questions about what they know about what living and non-living things can or cannot do. Previous studies have shown that children's understanding of life and death increases with age, so we are investigating this topic and trying to replicate previous findings. We are interested in how parent-child conversations about movies that show life and death might promote children's learning.

The child interview will take approximately 30 minutes, and the parent-child interaction will take about 30 minutes. The expected duration of the session is 1 hour.

Children must be in our age range and from the United States to participate.Families that participate in the study will receive a $20 Amazon.com e-gift card for your participation in the study. Families that decide to end the interview early for any reason still get compensated. Your family will receive the compensation within two business days. Only one egift-card per child/parent.